Rotisserie devices comprising a vertical rotatable spit are commonly used in restaurants to roast food products, typically meat. These rotisserie devices generally comprise a vertical rotatable spit, on which meat is skewered to form a stacked meat piling; these devices also comprise heating elements located adjacent the rotatable spit. In use, once the meat has been skewered on the spit, the heating elements are adjusted to release a selected amount of heat, and the spit is slowly rotated adjacent the heating elements to cook the meat. Such rotisserie devices are typically used in specialty restaurants, of the type serving Gyro-style or Shish-Taouk style meat sandwiches for example.
A cook, or the like food preparer, skewering meat on a vertical prior art spit will try to keep the resulting meat piling as cylindrical as possible, in order for the outer face of the meat piling to be as straight and vertical as possible. Therefore, the same amount of heat is distributed all around the revolving meat piling, and it can be uniformly cooked by the vertically disposed heating elements.
When it is desired to prepare a meat serving from the meat piling, the cook uses a sharp knife to shave or carve thin portions of meat from the body of the meat piling. However, when a cook prepares meat servings, he is generally pressed for time, and cannot afford to see to it that the meat piling remains substantially cylindrical. Indeed, some areas of the meat piling will be barely carved by the cook to prepare servings, and thus stays close to the heating elements, while other areas are repeatedly carved to prepare meat servings, and thus become more distant relative to the heating elements as the amount of meat servings carved from the meat piling increases. Typically, after a substantial number of meat servings have been prepared, the meat piling becomes inversely conical, and it no longer receives heat from the heating elements homogeneously all around it. This can cause food losses, since the meat piling portion which remains close to the heating elements is overexposed to heat, and thus dries out or carbonizes, and has to be disposed of.
Moreover, the meat skewering process can be inconvenient on traditional rotisserie devices. With known devices, the cook must first fully detach the spit from the rotisserie device, and then impale and stack pieces of meat on the spit. Thereafter, the cook must reattach the meat-loaded spit on the rotisserie device, one end at a time. This process can be arduous, as the meat-loaded spit can have a considerable mass.